Crypto pleasant banking platform Juno has raised $18 million. The Sequence A spherical was led by ParaFi Capital ‘s Progress Fund. The fundraising included a large variety of traders together with Greycroft, Antler World, Hashed, Leap Crypto, Mithril, sixth Man Ventures, Summary Ventures,, and Uncorrelated Fund.
As a part of the funding, Juno introduced the launch of a brand new loyalty token, Juno coin (JCOIN). This system acts equally to bank card rewards factors schemes, and tokens will solely be distributed to verified account holders. Juno customers can earn JCOIN by spending crypto with their Juno debit card or by taking their paychecks in cryptocurrencies resembling bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC. The corporate says that greater than 75,000 prospects within the U.S. take and make investments at the least a portion of their wage in cryptocurrency each month on its platform.
Juno gives cryptocurrency checking accounts that allow people to earn, make investments, and spend in crypto. The checking accounts are free to open, and each crypto deposits and withdrawals are free, as properly. The accounts are FDIC insured, courtesy of a sponsorship by Evolve Financial institution & Belief. Be aware that the USD holdings within the account, not the crypto holdings, are lined.
The mud has lastly settled from Circle’s large announcement final week that it has accelerated its crypto funds roadmap courtesy of its acquisition of Parts.
A service provider and developer-first funds orchestration platform, Parts was credited for its means to “take the complexity out of crypto funds,” by Circle Chief Product Officer Nikhil Chandhok. The Parts acquisition will assist make it simpler for retailers to combine their present PSP relationships with Circle’s crypto funds options. “Offering well-designed cost merchandise that may facilitate seamless, environment friendly, frictionless and pleasant buyer experiences are key to empowering retailers to benefit from these next-gen cost options,” Chandhok mentioned.
An issuer of each USD Coin (USDC) and Euro Coin (EUROC), Circle permits corporations around the globe to leverage digital currencies and public blockchains to facilitate funds, commerce, and monetary expertise. Based in 2013, the Boston, Massachusetts-based firm just lately introduced partnerships with GIANT Protocol to facilitate tokenized cell information and with non-profit Mara Basis to assist builders in Africa construct DApps and blockchain options.
There are large adjustments on the high for New York Digital Funding Group – extra popularly generally known as NYDIG. The cryptocurrency funding firm started the week with information that each CEO Robert Gutmann and President Yan Zhao have been stepping down from their positions. Changing them will likely be Tejas Shah, who will change into NYDIG’s new CEO, and Nate Conrad, who was promoted to President.
Shah was previously NYDIG’s World Head of Institutional Finance. Conrad was beforehand NYDIG’s World Head of Funds. Each Shah and Conrad joined NYDIG in 2020. Of their new roles, each executives will likely be tasked with boosting funding within the firm’s mining franchise and accelerating bitcoin adoption through options just like the Lightning Community, which facilitates cost by bitcoin.
Talking of funding, NYDIG’s C-suite personnel information got here on the identical time that reporters uncovered an SEC submitting revealed that NYDIG had raised $720 million for its institutional digital asset fund. In accordance with the submitting, 59 traders participated with a median funding of $12 million.
Based in 2017, NYDIG is among the many trade’s largest custodians of cryptocurrencies. The corporate holds greater than $1 billion in digital property for its prospects.
As extra card issuers authorize cardholders to transact in cryptocurrencies, it turns into more and more vital to be sure that card issuers are up-to-date and compliant with the laws that govern digital property. This week, we realized that Mastercard had launched a brand new answer, Crypto Safe, designed to allow issuers to find out the danger profile of crypto exchanges and different crypto suppliers, earlier than specifying which purchases of cryptocurrency must be authorised.
The brand new providing will allow issuers to precisely establish the crypto exchanges from which their cardholders are shopping for crypto, measure transaction approvals and declines, evaluation their publicity to crypto danger at a portfolio stage, and examine themselves to a peer group of economic establishments.
“Crypto Safe will present card issuers with a platform that permits them entry to insights which can enhance the security of crypto purchases,” President of Mastercard Cyber and Intelligence Ajay Bhalla mentioned.
Crypto Safe is powered by CipherTrace, a cryptocurrency intelligence firm Mastercard acquired simply over a 12 months in the past. CipherTrace’s information analytics and algorithms present perception into greater than 900 cryptocurrencies, serving to corporations convey higher safety to their crypto-related operations. The Menlo Park, California-based firm was based in 2015.
We talked about the Lightning Community earlier in our have a look at the objectives of the brand new management crew at NYDIG. Only recently, an organization primarily based in Vancouver, Canada, and Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, Vietnam, introduced that it has secured $2.25 million in seed funding for its expertise that brings the advantages of bitcoin’s Lightning Community to the funds rails of southeast Asia.
Hivemind Ventures led the spherical for Neutronpay, which disclosed the funding final week regardless of elevating the cash in June. Taking part within the funding have been Republic Cavalry, Experience Wave, Studio, Iterative, Fulgar Ventures, together with particular person traders. Amongst these particular person traders is Lisa Shields, founder and CEO of Finovate alum FISPAN.
The corporate has already put the brand new capital to work, including expertise with a watch towards boosting its capability to develop enterprise APIs, quickly, a client cell app. ‘”Laying the infrastructure for Lightning throughout South East Asia would make it very simple for locals to higher transact with one another and for the remainder of the world to transact within the area – whether or not whereas on trip or for doing enterprise,” Neutronpay founder and CEO Albert Buu mentioned.
Picture by RODNAE Productions